Vaccine Pricing

* We’d like to offer additional information about our tetanus vaccine pricing, which was a focus of your March 21 editorial, “High Vaccine Prices: Health at Risk.”

On the day that the editorial appeared, we met with Rep. Gary Condit (D-Ceres) and his staff to share with them the facts behind our price increase. Aventis Pasteur did not increase its prices because it found out that Wyeth Lederle, the only other manufacturer, was leaving the market.

In fact, the first price increase in many years was effected in January 2000, six months before Wyeth Lederle experienced supply problems and nearly a year before it announced the discontinuation of its product. Our price increase was not due to Wyeth Lederle’s departure but to the economic realities imposed by the significantly increased cost of operating a modern and compliant vaccine facility.

DAVID J. WILLIAMS

President, Aventis Pasteur

Swiftwater, Pa.